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anyone else not figure out your married finances yet?
the previous thread sparked this one.
DH and i haven't had the time to sit down and discuss our finances and what we'd like to do about combining/not combining bank accounts. even though i've been trying to discuss the topic since before we got married, it's like pulling teeth. 
for anyone, like us, that hasn't figured it out yet, i found this article that i thought was interesting. it had a lot of good tips and advice that i hadn't thought of before. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/home_economics/2011/01/our_newlywed_money_dilemma.html
for anyone that has already figured it out, if you don't mind sharing, how did y'all decide to handle your bank accounts? one joint account, two separate accounts, or a combination one joint and two separate?
Re: anyone else not figure out your married finances yet?
FI and I opened a joint banking account. He has a separate checking account for his business, but I think he will be closing that in the near future.
I think it will be much easier for us to budget things out, and pay bills with one bank account to worry about, and to track where our money is going if for some reason we end up cutting it close some months.
This is the same reason we decided to have a joint account.
We each have our own savings and checking accounts right now, but we will be opening up a joint checking and joint savings as soon as we can both get to the bank. We will then probably close our own savings account and put our personal savings into our joint savings account.
We will have our paychecks both go into our joint checking, which we will pay bills from, but then we will transfer money into our own accounts to have in case we want to surprise one another with something, probably keep a couple 100 dollars in our own accounts.
It seems kind of strange to pay for everything together only because I don't know how I feel about my money going towards DH's car payment or his student loans... or how he would feel about paying for my student loans? I guess in the end all of our money is just that, ours, so it doesn't really matter. As long as at the end of each month our bills are paid, doesn't matter if it was "my money" or "his money" that paid for it, we are married and we are a team
We've had joined accounts (checking, savings, credit card, everything) for a year and a half now. Honestly it's a lot easier and we've had no problems. Reasons I like it:
1) It is much easier to see how much money you have and easier to pay bills. No deciding who is paying what.
2) In my opinion, when you marry someone, it's no longer "my money" and "his money" - it should be "our money". Same thing with debt & car payments. You are sharing your lives and everything in it. It would be kind of a red flag to me if H said something like "Well, I don't want MY money going towards YOUR student debt." That's the kind of thing a boyfriend would say, not a husband.
3) I think it's better for your credit since you'll have a lot more money to your name when they check out your accounts.
4) What happens when if/when you have kids? Stay at home moms don't make any money, does that mean they'll need to be on an allowance from their H's account to buy anything or pay any of "their" debt?
I'll get off my soap box now =] I just don't see the hesitation in joining accounts - you can commit to a lifetime of marriage, but not having the same bank account? Like I said, just a red flag to me.
H and I have had a joint bank account for probably over a year now. Pretty much since I moved in. We just thought it was the easiest way to make sure everything gets paid. Our situation is a little unique since H owns his own company though. So he does have a company account, and we discussed the fact that if he needs to go out and buy a $1000.00 saw I can't really say too much since it is for his business. However, anything over about $100.00 we discuss if it's a personal purchase. Ex. H can go buy stuff for his company that's wahtever.. i get that.. but he can't go out and drop $1000.00 on a tv without discussing it with me first. Every month he puts a "salary" into our joint account to help with the bills. That combined with my income takes care of all of our bills and most of our extras (suppers out etc). However, he does make significantly more than me so lots of times when we go out for supper he'll put it on his credit card and then just pay that off out of his business account at the end of the month. It works for us, but we just had to sit down and talk about it.
H had a house long before I came into the picture, however since I moved in it's been "ours". We just looked at things in the context of if WE are going to be married, and WE are both using the water, eating the food, living in the house than WE might as well pay the bills.
When we moved to Colorado, we went ahead and merged accounts- He had a full time job & I didn't, so it made the most sense for us.
It's worked out WAY better than our years of having separate accounts and splitting bills. I'm in charge of the bill paying, so now nothing falls through like it used to (His credit card, his student loans, his car... Ahem). Plus it's nice to be able to see everything all in one place
I'm not sure if this is a general statement or directed at anyone, but i completely agree with you about joining bank accounts. and to clarify, he's not resistant to joining bank accounts, we just haven't made time to sit down and talk it through.
we're in a unique situation right now and working in different cities during the week and only see each other on the weekends, so the couple days we get to see each other the last thing we want to do is talk money. haha
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I agree!
It wasn't directed at anyone specifically, just a general statement. I know that my opinions can tend to come off quite strong (as my family and friends love to remind me!) so I apologize for that. I've also put off some things since the wedding - now that we have "forever" in front of us, that doesn't exactly light the fire under my a$$ to get these things taken care of =]
I agree!! We discussed all of our options and 3 accounts was an option at one point for gifts and stuff, but when it came down to it we just combined everything. We were separate before we were married and I love everything being together now and being able to set financial goals!!
We still have our own accounts, but we also have a joint "household account". We each put a set amount into the house account every paycheck for household bills.
I came into the relationship with a lot of student debt. I made that debt, I don't feel hubby needs to pay for it. I pay my student loans, he pays the car payment for the expensive sports car that he had to have. Those bills along with some "fun money" stay in our individual accounts, everything else comes out of the house account.
We lived together for over a year before we got married and this is just how we did it and it works. And if it isn't broke, we don't need to fix it.
That being said, that is what works for us, it may not hold true in every relationship.
I'm really late to the game here, but we combied our stuff like 6 months ago. We both have separate savings accounts though, that were left over from previous accounts. H is saving up for a boat next summer and I am saving up for various things.
H and I definitely have been having LOTS more money talks though than before the wedding, and we hope to do a Dave Ramsey style budgeting-cash only, for everything. So far we've definitely had some slip ups (damn Groupons, etc!!) and we have a good chunk of student loan/cc debt to clear up first but it feels good to tackle the debt together!
We have seperate accounts because we've always had seperate accounts and it works for us, so we're in no rush to change it. We're also at different banks and just aren't in a rush to go through the PITA of switching.
We still consider it our money though. We discuss any large purchases. And we will be opening a join savings account to start saving for a house. FI's money will go into that, just because that's how it's worked out budget-wise.
We'll probably merge stuff eventually, but right now we're working to pay down some debt so I'm a little hesitant to change anything until that happens.
we are still in the process of figure it all out. I am currently unemployed, and so far we havn't joined anything.
Our plan is to open a joint cheqings and savings but retain our personal savings and either put about 10% of our own paychecks (when I am working) into our personal savings, and/or modify the numbers when one of is isnt working or isnt making as much money (ie. 5% out of his paycheck each, or nothing when someone isnt working - still working on the exacts) so that we can have our own money that we dont have to be accountable to each other for so if he wants a videogame or I want to buy somethihng for me, it doesnt have to become a source of tension. ( I tend to be a lot more frugal then H and we have a LOT of debt right now, so we figure this will help him know how much he can spend and also help me stay out of his hair about wasting money).
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We have separate checking accounts and a joint savings account. This works for us but may not work for others. In that same vein, I do consider it "my" money and "his" money. The savings would be considered "ours" but the checking accounts are our own. If later down the line one of us were to God forbid lose one of our jobs then that obviously will change but for the time being this is how we handle things.